And a Song Someone Sings
by purplefern
Summary: Alone, and without any memories, Beetle thinks about his situation. Originally a songfic with Once Upon a December. Now just sort of inspired by, I guess.


Saw Kubo and the Two Strings recently, and I loved it. Beetle was (surprisingly) my favorite character, and I wanted to write something about him since his death left me super sad. Buuuut, I just can't really write funny characters or happiness apparently, so instead of the Kubo/Beetle father/son fluff I had wanted to write, I ended up writing amnesia angst. Also, I highly recommend listening to "Once Upon a December" from Anastasia while you read, since this was originally a songfic, until some ff person yelled at me about that and I didn't want to risk my account or anything, plus I'm just a wimp when people yell at me. Ok, on with the story.

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Flashes sometimes came to him. At first, it seemed random, and what he saw was incoherent and incomplete. Phrases missing the rest of their sentences, short, non-sequitur sentences that made little sense. He may suddenly think of an image of a elaborate screen wall, covered in all sorts of animals and figures from legends, before it disappeared back to the recesses of his mind like a mist. Or sometimes it wouldn't even be a image, just a feeling, or a smell, that vanished as soon as it arrived. The feeling of being on horseback, the smell of cherry blossoms, a glimpse of a man watering a bonsai tree and practicing forms. A samurai.

After it happened a few more times while he was out on his wanderings, he linked the memories' resurfacing to the pieces of armor and weapons he found that had been left by fallen and bygone marching samurai, many of which were covered with the same crest of a black stag beetle on red, its wings partially opened. I must have been a samurai. Why else would I be seeing all this? Well, that, or I was just really into collecting samurai stuff.

He thought deeply about this (and, for some reason, he felt that this should seem funny. A ghost of a half-remembered laugh drifted through the air) while he took his meals in the warm cave that was currently his house (but not, he felt, his home). Were these his memories? Had he finally started unraveling the mystery of his past? He couldn't help but hope that, maybe, at some point, he would have been sitting around the fire, eating dinner, but with other people. Maybe friends, maybe even a family. He could hear the ethereal sound of a song coming from the past, a slow and warm sound of a gently plucked shamisen, and he could almost hear a voice, before that, too, seemed to vanish into thin air. The rest of that dinner felt lonelier than ever.

He then took to collecting samurai things, hoping that with enough of them he could finally, clearly, remember. But the more that he half-remembered, the more that he felt empty and confused. He started to get a feeling of loss that nagged at the edge of his soul. Most days it didn't show its face, but on nights when he was outside, he would look at the stars, and for reasons he couldn't explain that feeling of loss crept up on him again, and he felt like he could almost remember a person's face and a feeling of warmth. He had been...happy? In love? Loved, even?

After a time, that loss and loneliness began to creep up on him during the day, as his realization of his isolation began to sink in. How long had he even been by himself, if he truly had once been a man? He seemed to forget time as easily as he forgot his name and history. It could have been months, or it could have been years. There were no important events to help him keep track of time, and he had no memories to gauge how long a year felt. Even worse was that, no matter how much stuff he collected, no matter how long it had been, he could remember no more than before. The memories seemed to just refuse to stick. His head was constantly empty.

For now, his comfort would have to be from the ghostly song that drifted through the air.

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R&R, sorry if anyone really liked it better as a songfic, I'm just not taking any chances.


End file.
